Connected in Story: Chapter Five
In which we become Real…
We’ve journeyed five weeks into Lent together. Five weeks of story. Five weeks we’ve seen the ways that our story fits into The Story. Winnie the Pooh reminded us that community is where we live out our story. Anne of Green Gables helped us find home within community and within ourselves. Harry Potter showed us the power of ordinary people living their heroic stories. Last week, I got a little nerdy (okay… a lot nerdy) as I wrote about Star Wars and finding connection in something bigger than ourselves.
This week I want to get Real. But let’s talk a bit about what Real means. Real is not the pretty filters we post on Instagram. Real is not the “I’m fine. How are you?” that we answer when someone asks us how we are doing. Real is not the smile we put on our face in public when our private life is breaking our hearts.
Real is messy and hard. Real involves tears and words we can’t take back. Real is the story of what happens behind closed doors at home and also within these wandering hearts of ours.
Unfortunately, sometimes it’s a little too easy to convince ourselves that the story we show to the world is real. It is easier to pretend that it is true. Honestly, sometimes believing that it is real helps us to survive. It’s a defense mechanism, a way of protecting ourselves. But defense mechanisms and masks are not truth, nor are they healthy and authentic.
The Veveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real is a sweet children’s tale. Honestly though, it speaks more to me now as an adult than it did when I was a child.
In the book, a stuffed Rabbit made of velveteen is found inside a stocking one Christmas. The Boy loves on the Rabbit for a bit, but soon moves on to the shinier and noisier toys. The Rabbit lives quietly in the toy box in the Boy’s room. However, one night the Boy cannot find his favorite sleep buddy, and Nana gives him the Rabbit to sleep with. From that moment on, the Boy and his Rabbit are inseparable. The little Rabbit is taken on wheelbarrow rides and to picnics and all the things a Boy and his Rabbit can get into.
The Rabbit begins to look worn and his fur is shabby, but that doesn’t matter because the Boy loves him and believes the Rabbit is Real.
I love this quote from the beloved storybook. In it, the Skin Horse, who is very old and wise, tells the little Rabbit how you become Real.
He said, “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
I will be honest, y’all. I feel shabby, and I feel like my joints are loose and one eye has fallen out. I feel like my hair has been rubbed off….but not because I was loved well. I feel this way because I have been hurt deeply.
But I am also learning to trust the One Who Made me - and I am learning to see myself as Beloved. And slowly, I’m beginning to see the pain I carry as a part of my story rather than all of it. I’m beginning to believe my story is more about becoming Real - more about who I am Becoming - instead of the IG filtered story of my past.
And the beautiful part of it all? In becoming Real, I am finding my true self. I am finding community. And I am finding myself loved - because I am surrounding myself with those who understand.
“.....once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”